English

Your Garibaldi missed the mark! You see
The end of life's to cheat, and not to be
Cheated: The knave is nobler than the fool!
Get all you can and keep it! Life's a pool,
The best luck wins; if Virtue starves in rags,
I laugh at Virtue; here's my money-bags!
Here's righteous metal! We have kings, I say,
To keep cash going, and the game at play;
There's why a king wants money — he'd be missed
Without a fertilizing civil list.
Do but try
The question with a steady moral eye!
The colonel strives to be a brigadier,

This Garibaldi now, the Italian boys
Go mad to hear him — take to dying — take
To passion for " the pure and high; " — God's sake!
It's monstrous, horrible! One sees quite clear
Society — our charge — must shake with fear,
And shriek for help, and call on us to act
When there's a hero, taken in the fact.
If Light shines in the dark, there's guilt in that!
What's viler than a lantern to a bat?

( VICTOR HUGO TO GARIBALDI .)

( " Ces jeunes gens, combien etaient-ils? " )

Young soldiers of the noble Latin blood,
How many are ye — Boys? Four thousand odd.
How many are there dead? Six hundred: count!
Their limbs lie strewn about the fatal mount,
Blackened and torn, eyes gummed with blood, hearts rolled
Out from their ribs, to give the wolves of the wold
A red feast; nothing of them left but these
Pierced relics, underneath the olive trees,
Show where the gin was sprung — the scoundrel-trap

As from the mist a noble pine we tell
Grown old upon the heights of Appenzel,
When morning freshness breathes round all the wood,
So Eviradnus now before them stood,
Opening his vizor, which at once revealed
The snowy beard it had so well concealed.
Then Sigismond was still as dog at gaze,
But Ladislaus leaped, and howl did raise,
And laughed and gnashed his teeth, till, like a cloud
That sudden bursts, his rage was all avowed.
" 'Tis but an old man after all! " he cried.

IN THE FOREST .

If in the wood a traveller there had been
That eve, had lost himself, strange sight he'd seen.
Quite in the forest's heart a lighted space
Arose to view; in that deserted place
A lone, abandoned hall with light aglow
The long neglect of centuries did show.
The castle-towers of Corbus in decay
Were girt by weeds and growths that had their way;
Couch-grass and ivy, and wild eglantine
In subtle scaling warfare all combine.
Subject to such attacks three hundred years,

EVIRADNUS .

Eviradnus was growing old apace,
The weight of years had left its hoary trace,
But still of knights the most renowned was he,
Model of bravery and purity.
His blood he spared not; ready day or night
To punish crime, his dauntless sword shone bright
In his unblemished hand; holy and white
And loyal all his noble life had been,
A Christian Samson coming on the scene.
With fist alone the gate he battered down
Of Sickingen in flames, and saved the town.

THE Knight E RRANT .

( " Qu'est-ce que Sigismond et Ladislas ont dit? " )

THE ADVENTURER SETS OUT .

What was it Sigismond and Ladislaus said?

I know not if the rock, or tree o'erhead,
Had heard their speech; — but when the two spake low,
Among the trees, a shudder seemed to go
Through all their branches, just as if that way
A beast had passed to trouble and dismay.
Darker the shadow of the rock was seen,
And then a morsel of the shade, between

Yet if a prayer could hasten destiny,
Were it not well in her bright hour to die —
The world at peace, or held in righteous fear! —
Man's pride, and strength, — her England's matchless spear?

She should have died hereafter! no, not now,
Not thus have made our cup with tears o'erflow.
The holy cause had triumph'd, — England's car
Came, rich with trophies of her mightiest war;
Monarchs were in her train; above her van
Blazed the deliver'd cross, the ark of man;
And she stood forth, first, fairest stood, to hail

The bier has left the hall, — has pass'd the court, —
Has enter'd, slow and dim, the Chapel's porte;
Silence is now for sound; for lustre, gloom;
Dim, in long, moveless lines, gleam lance and plume;
The flag is furl'd, the sabre in its sheath,
All is the hush'd magnificence of death.
Yet pale and partial flashes from the moon,
Toiling through mist-wreaths now, are downwards thrown,
Edging with silver, like a tempest-cloud,
The Chapel's gloomy arch, the thick-group'd crowd,
That stand with upturn'd eyes, and shapes like stone,

Then — comes the burst, the vision, broad awake
To see, what, thought on , makes the reason shake.
Mountains! where are ye! nay, thou grave! to hide
Our glance from all the dazzling, grand, untried!
A pang, — a moment — and we've burst the pall
Where all o'erwhelms; impress'd immortal , all!
How shall we melt in homage, as move by
The regal people of eternity!
Deep shuddering, as we think, how oft, how near,
Viewless, — they cross'd us in their high career: —
Kings of the elements! that now, embrow'd